Democracy Now! Blog

In this web-only interview, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald reveals he talked to NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Saturday. "He is doing very well in terms of his mindset, his demeanor," Greenwald says. "He is able to follow things online, the debates, as they unfold, and he is feeling very good about the choices that he made." [includes rush transcript]

"Whatever happens it will be pivotal to Egypt’s future," reports Sharif Abdel Kouddous as he calls in his latest update from Cairo, in which he recaps what has taken place since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.

In this web-only interview, WikiLeaks spokesperson and Icelandic journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson discusses the significance of the Bradley Manning trial and responds to the report in Wired.com that the FBI had an informant inside WikiLeaks. [includes rush transcript]

In this web-only interview, Syracuse University Professor Horace Campbell reflects on the importance of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle. He also talks about his new book, "Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya." [includes rush transcript]

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
It didn’t take long this week for the architects of the disastrous U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq to apply their makeup and jump before the cable news television cameras. Cronies of George W. Bush, like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and Paul Bremer, have been given airtime on the networks and space in the opinion pages to lambast President Barack Obama for the current crisis in Iraq. These pundits and politicians are no less wrong today than they were when selling the Iraq War back in 2003.

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen describes how the election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa inspired some of the six million blacks who were forcefully removed from their land and resettled into so-called "homelands" to try and reclaim their land. [includes rush transcript]

The Supreme Court has just struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act in a 5-to-4 ruling. The court ruled in favor of officials from Shelby County, Alabama, in finding that a formula in the act that determines which states need federal approval to change voting laws is invalid. "In the Court’s view, the very success of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the dissent.

Amy Goodman interviews Michael Ratner, lawyer for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, about the breaking news that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has freely left Hong Kong and has flown to Russia. He is seeking asylum in an unnamed country, possibly Ecuador.

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
Have you seen the pictures? All the kids, sleeping on floors in row upon row, detained by the Department of Homeland Security. There are more children coming in every day, and the federal government doesn’t know where to keep them.

In this extended web-only interview, Sister Helen Prejean talks about the 20th anniversary of her landmark book "Dead Man Walking," that chronicles her years of anti-death penalty activism. [includes rush transcript]

As the Senate begins its debate on the immigration reform bill, we speak to Shena Gutierrez, whose husband was nearly killed in an encounter with Border Patrol agents. While still unconscious in the hospital, he was threatened with deportation. She explains what happened. [includes rush transcript]

Turkish riot police have forcibly removed throngs of protesters from Istanbul’s Taksim Square after nearly two weeks of demonstrations. Beginning Tuesday and lasting overnight, officers fired tear gas and water cannons into a crowd of thousands of people, forcing them to disperse. [includes rush transcript]

On May 28, around 100 Wal-Mart workers in Florida, Massachusetts and California walked off the job for an unprecedented series of "prolonged strikes" against worker retaliation. In this web exclusive, we speak with Josh Eidelson of The Nation. [includes rush transcript]

In this web special, William Binney describes how his former agency has built a massive system to track, monitor and record phone and Internet communications of U.S. citizens and people around the world. [includes rush transcript]

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
When Bowe Bergdahl was reported missing in Afghanistan on the morning of June 30, 2009, a crack formed in the U.S. narrative about the longest war in our nation’s history. Bergdahl’s release this week, as part of a prisoner-of-war swap with the Taliban, has provoked the partisan pundits to hurl invective at the American POW, his family, and at President Barack Obama.

In this web-only segment on secret U.S. operations inside Yemen, we look at the first air strike on Yemen authorized by President Obama: a deadly cruise missile attack on the village of al-Majalah. Most of the 45 killed were women and children. [includes rush transcript]

DN! In Depth

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan — The corporate television newscasts spend more and more time covering the increasingly disruptive, costly and at times deadly weather. But they consistently fail to make the link between extreme weather and climate change.